Never let me go
by RecklessAbandon123
Summary: Delena AU/AH. Elena is a patient in Mystic Falls' mental hospital, the same hospital where Damon is sentenced to community service after he is arrested. When those two seemingly different people meet, an unlikely bond is formed, and they soon realise that it is through pain that people best relate to each other, and that, deep down, they are the same.


# Never let me go chapter 1 #  
A/N: I've had this idea stuck in my head for a month and I already have many ongoing fanfictions, but I had to write it.

First chapter is mostly in Damon's POV and Elena appears only at the end, but I will try to make her POV longer in the next chapter.

Enjoy, my lovelies.

Disclaimer: Do I own TVD? Nope.

Damon could tell he was in deep shit from the look of the police officer's face. He was looking down at him like he was sick and tired of teenage delinquents like him.

Damon would gladly say a witty remark that would wipe that smug expression off the officer's face, but he was already in trouble and didn't feel like spending another hour in this hellhole with a pair of handcuffs restraining his movements.

"You were in the graveyard past the closing hours, the gatekeeper can assure it, correct?" the officer said, and Damon looked down at his clenching and unclenching fists and taking a breath to control himself he said "Yes."

"And while you were in the cemetary you were under the influence of alcohol which you illegally bought and consumed. We have the empty bottles as evidence." the officer continued, undeterred by the teen's attitude.

Damon narrowed his eyes at him "Yes."

Why was he asking him since he already knew all these things? He wondered if that cop was fishing for a confession and if there were any hidden cameras in the room. Just to be sure, Damon glared everywhere his gaze wandered to.

"And while you were drunk in the cemetary at night you found it suitable to vandalise your father's grave?" the officer made no attempt to hide the contempt and disgust from his voice.

Damon felt like he disliked him even more with every passing minute.

"It wasn't vandalism." he said defiantly.

The officer leaned towards Damon across his desk to peer at him; Damon didn't like the scrunitizing look he was giving him, as if that walking doughnut of a cop could understand his motives while he clearly had no idea what was going on inside his head.

"You were throwing beer bottles and yelling at a grave of a deacesed person, particularly your late father's, Mr. Salvatore. If this wasn't vandalism then what was it?"

Damon wanted to say many things. For once, he wanted to point out that any person who had a tombstone with their name in the grave yard was obviously deceased.

Also, he wanted to tell the officer that he had every reason to go yelling at his father's grave, but then of course he wouldn't understand, or rather he wouldn't want to understand, so he just kept his gaze cast downwards and remained quiet while he was boiling inside.

"Very well." the officer said. "If you don't have anything else to add, I would like to talk with your guardian. You might be a minor and that means I can't put you to jail, but your offence will not go unpunished."

Another, younger officer walked inside and escorted Damon outside while motioning to Zach to go inside. His uncle gave him a sympathetic look as they brushed past each other.

Damon was instructed to sit in a chair and wait there without wandering around the station. If someone looked at his school record, they would think that he had at least once been at a police station before, but surprisingly enough, this was his first time.

Under other circumstances, Damon would venture around the station and have a little fun by causing mayhem, but he was in enough trouble already as it was.

Damon didn't know how much time had passed when Zach emerged from the office, but he could feel his eyelids becoming heavy and his head lolling back agaist the wall; the tire of the day was taking a toll on him.

The officer had a sour expression on his face, which made Damon think that the punishment that was decided wasn't as bad as that jerk would want.

"You're free to go, but I'm going to keep an eye on you." he said.

When Damon and his uncle were left alone in the corridor, Zach turned towards him and asked "What was this all about, kiddo?"

There was no accusation in his voice, just an attempt to understand him, and Damon felt all the angry responses he had thought about giving his uncle when the inevitable question came disappear.

Zach sighed. "Don't worry, we'll sort things out. Now let's go home. Your brother must worry about where we are."

Damon didn't bother telling Zach that his younger brother Stefan was worrying about everything and was afraid of his own shadow. He let his uncle clap him on the shoulder in an awkward attempt to comfort him and lead him out of the police station and into the car.

"What's the verdict?" Damon asked wryly as they drove across town to Zach's boarding house where he and Stefan had been living for the past two months.

"Community service." Zach said, and noting the sigh of relief from Damon he added "Not so fast. You'll have to work in a mental hospital."

Damon slouched down on his seat. It wasn't like he wasn't happy for not going to juvie. When he saw the beam of light from the torch of the cemetary's gatekeeper and when he realised what it meant through his drunken haziness, his first thought was oh crap, and his second was a question: how would Stefan cope if he was taken away?

"But a lunatic house?" Damon voiced his thoughts aloud.

"Hey, young man. You should watch your language. I don't want you saying this while you'll be working in the hospital, and maybe you should have thought that before breaking and entering in a cemetary." Zach said, failing miserably at the strict-adult-in-charge act.

Unlike his father, Damon thought sarcastically.

"Hey, Zach?" Damon said as he watched the black shapes of the trees blurring past them as they left town and headed for the boarding house, and the night sky remaining the same no matter where they went.

"Yeah, Damon?"

"I don't think you're doing this whole parenting thing right. You're too lenient."

Zach chuckled "You tell me."

XXXXX

Elena stared through the window at the starry night. The black sky had a few tendrils of mist before, but now it was clear and all the stars were showing, twinkling dots breaking the darkness. The view would be perfect if it wasn't obscured by the metal bars of the window.

She sighed. A nurse had passed from her room to check if she was asleep two hours ago, and Elena had layed in bed and forced her breathing to be slow and even, but she wasn't really asleep. She hadn't managed to fall asleep before the first light of day in a while.

Her room was bare except of the hospital's bed, desk and chair and her few meager possessions that hadn't been removed from her when she first arrived at the hospital two months ago, so Elena had nothing better to do than curl up at the window-sill and gaze longingly at the sky.

If it wasn't for that godamn bars...

What did they think she would do, jump through the window and end her life? All these were ridiculous. She shouldn't be in a mental hospital. She was fine and they would all figure it out soon enough. 


End file.
